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Newnan Personal Injury Lawyer - Lawsuit Settles for $7 Million
Posted on 3/9/2010

Atlanta Accident Attorney
Posted on 2/16/2010

Fayetteville & Peachtree City, Georgia Bicyclist Lawyer
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Atlanta Drunk Driving Accident Lawyer
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Clayton County Injury Lawyer
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Appeals court upholds $16 million verdict against Allstate
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Car Accidents / Automobile Accidents

Georgia Seat Belt Laws & Pickup Drivers

Georgia seat belt laws require everyone over the age of 18 to wear a safety belt when driving or riding in the front seat of a passenger vehicle. Failure to buckle up results in a $15 fine. The driver is also responsible for ensuring that everyone aged 6 – 17 is wearing a seatbelt, regardless of whether they are in the front or back seats. If a child is not wearing a safety belt, the penalty is a $25 fine. Children under the age of 6 are required to be in an age/weight appropriate child restraint or booster seat. The failure to belt a child under the age of 6 is a $50 fine.

Georgia is a primary enforcement state, meaning that police officers are authorized to pull drivers over solely to issue a seatbelt ticket.

Interestingly, Georgia law exempts pickup trucks from the seat belt requirement. The legislature decided not to include pickup trucks in the definition of “passenger vehicle” because of a fear that the law would inconvenience farmers. Georgia is the only state in the nation that continues to exempt safety belt use in pickup trucks.

Several surveys have shown that safety belt use is especially low in rural areas and among pickup truck drivers. The Georgia Governor’s Office of Highway Safety reports that pickup truck occupants use safety belts about 62.5% of the time, compared to 83.5% usage for other auto drivers. The gap in safety belt usage results in a higher fatality rate for pickup drivers involved in accidents. In 2005, there were 4,649 truck drivers and passengers who were killed in car crashes. A whopping 30% of those who died were not wearing safety belts.

The problem is two-fold for pickup truck drivers. Not only is the failure to buckle up unsafe, but the rural, wooded areas that pickup trucks are most often driven on are the most frequent crash sites in the Southeast, according to Karen Dixon of Georgia Tech. Dixon headed a regional study funded by the Federal Highway Administration and found that on rural roads, 48.6% of the regions fatal crashes involved unbelted pickup drivers.

This exemption, according to state Rep. Calvin Hill, from suburban Atlanta, results in 50-70 deaths a year and 5,000 serious injuries. The total bill to the state comes to about $20 million in Medicaid expenses, Hill says.

Georgia’s refusal to enact a law that includes pickup trucks also means that the state is missing out on $20.7 million in federal highway funding. Recently, the state of Indiana passed a law that rescinded their pickup exemption. After passing the law, Indiana received $15.7 million in federal highway funding.